Can Dharma study lead to insight?
Some people wonder how Dharma study could possibly lead to insight—how something so conceptual could give rise to a non-conceptual realisation.
But if that wasn’t the case, why would enlightened teachers throughout the ages choose to share their wisdom through words? They must have known that, used in the right way, concepts can point beyond themselves.
A couple of weeks ago, I ran a small workshop on how to design your own Dharma study system. It’s something I’ve been developing over the past year or so and sharing more recently. Admittedly, it’s a bit on the nerdy side—built on software called Obsidian, which lets you connect your notes in all sorts of creative ways.
One response I've heard a few times is, “I find your system inspiring, but also kind of intimidating.” Maybe at first glance it seems a bit complex or overly intellectual?
At the start of the workshop, as people were sharing their own experience of Dharma study, many of them said some variation of: “When I did my degree, I was really organised—but not with Dharma study.” That made me smile. I never did a degree—in fact, I left school at 15 with a couple of O-levels, and that was the end of any formal education for me. I went on to train as a hairdresser.
For me, study has always meant Dharma study—I’ve never associated it with universities, exams, or grades. My way into the Dharma was through the Triratna Community, founded by Sangharakshita, where there was a strong emphasis on Dharma study—perhaps even to a fault. I’d say his Dharma teaching was more developed than his meditation teaching. Over the years, that imbalance has been addressed, with excellent teachers like Tejananda and Vajradevi (among others) developing and deepening the meditation tradition within Triratna. Perhaps we've even overcorrected, to the point where Dharma study has become a little neglected?
There’s a common view—very much present today, but also in Tsongkhapa’s time in the 14th century—that you can’t reach insight, a non-conceptual realisation, through concepts. Tsongkhapa, a famous Tibetan Buddhist teacher, disagreed. He argued that a deep engagement with Dharma teaching could, in fact, lead to a direct, non-conceptual realisation of reality. I think his perspective is well worth considering.
This little article is inspired by a chapter in Guy Newland's Introduction to Emptiness, one of my favourite Dharma books. If you have a copy, you might want to re-read Chapter 10: From Analysis to Insight.
The general argument goes like this:
Because any kind of analysis is by nature to do with thinking, and because thinking is by nature dualistic, analysis cannot lead to insight, which is non-dualistic and beyond thinking.
So what has this got to do with us and how we bring the Dharma into our own meditation practice? We probably don't imagine ourselves sitting down for a session of "analysis"! So then—what is meditation?
Samatha and vipassana
Traditionally, it's divided into two aspects: samatha and vipassana. Samatha refers to practices that calm the mind (and remember, the mind and body are not separate), while vipassana involves more of a sense of investigation, where we ask, "What is actually going on here?" This investigative approach is what Tsongkapa means by analysis. It's the process of analysing our experience in the light of the Dharma.
Though studying the Dharma we discover all sorts of questions we can ask, sometimes these are called ‘pointers’. Here are a few interesting ones:
Noticing the sounds of the birds singing—where are those sounds happening?
Who is listening?
What, right now, is the experience of my hands, outside of ideas or images of ‘my hands’?
Do 'hands' actually exist as anything other than a concept?
I've heard people say of this investigation process that it's too conceptual. But just because the questions themselves are conceptual—made up of thoughts and words—it doesn't mean the answer will be conceptual. In fact, it never is. Insight is non-conceptual, yet insight can arise in response to a good question.
Let’s go back to our questions above.
What we might discover is that the sounds don’t have a location—they’re just there, arising in the space of awareness. We add in the idea of a location, but that is secondary to the sound itself. And we find that we also can’t locate anyone who is doing the listening.
What we think of as our hands—having a certain shape and form—are simply not there when we close our eyes. What we find again is a ‘cloud’ of sensations arising in space. Perhaps all we perceive is energy or vibration.
A conceptual question can sometimes lead us to a non-conceptual, lived experience.
We start to see that our ideas about where things are, and what things are, don’t hold up the way we thought they did. What we uncover is often a whole tangle of unquestioned assumptions about how things are.
You might think, “I’m not really into the intellectual side of practice. I connect more through the body, or through feelings.” But whether we notice them or not, we’re all carrying around a bunch of ideas—stories, assumptions, interpretations—that shape how we see things, and get in the way of seeing what’s actually happening.
You could say that recognising these stories and assumptions for what they are is insight.
We finally see what they’ve been covering up. In that sense, by asking the right kind of question we can drop into a deeper kind of understanding—one that’s not just in the head, but in our direct experience.
Tsong-kha-pa quotes the Buddha as saying to Kashyapa:
“Kashyapa, it is like this. For example, two trees are dragged against each other by wind, and from that a fire starts, burning the two trees. In the same way, Kashyapa, if you have correct, analytical discrimination, the power of a noble being’s wisdom will emerge. With its emergence, correct, analytical discrimination will itself be burned up.”
So through analysis—which may begin with a conceptual question—insight can arise. And when it does, it burns away any sense of dualistic thinking.
Before insight, the question “If there is a self, where is it?” might feel like a knotty problem. After insight, we might simply laugh at the absurdity of such a question.
Guy Newland also explains how Tsongkhapa made it clear that effects can be completely different from their causes. He gives the example of a big, leafy plant growing from a tiny, dry seed—it doesn’t seem possible, and yet that’s exactly what happens.
In the same way, it’s a mistake to think that Dharma study—with its conceptual and necessarily dualistic nature—can’t lead to non-conceptual, non-dual insight. If that were true, why would enlightened teachers throughout history have used words to express their realisation? They clearly had deep confidence that words, while limited, can point beyond themselves.
Resources
A System for Creative Dharma Study The first article in this series on how to set up your zettelkasten note taking system.
Giving expression to your insights A second article on how to create something new from your collection of notes.
A System for Writing - Bob Dotto. This is by far the best book on setting up your own zettelkasten, beautifully clear and simple.
Obsidian - Is a free digital note taking app. It uses markdown files that live on your own computer.
